Atonement

"Preface"

(All Rights Reserved to H.M. Verdon, MusicXxGurur/ Atonement 2013)

I glanced down at the phone in anticipation. I didn’t have to ask Russ to know he’d looked up the Hatfield and McCoy feud; see what the damage was. My eyes scrolled the words until I found something about Election Day. Everything about Ellison was on there, how he’d been merely breaking up a fight between Lias Hatfield and Tolbert McCoy—a fight started over an argument about a damn fiddle, no less—and how he’d been stabbed twenty-six times before Pharmer finally shot him. There was all the drama about the Hatfields stealing the McCoy boys away from the law and hiding them off at Ellison’s.

  And then everything got a little messy after that.

  There was nothing about the Hatfields executing the three McCoys against paw-paw bushes. Nope. It was called the Battle in 1882—people are so freaking original—and a total of five people died; two of Rand’l’s sons, neither of which were the three accused, Lias Hatfield, and two other people riding with Rand’l. I thought it’d been much worse!

  There was nothing about Cap dying that night or the day after.

  A big smile on my face, I looked up at Russ, saying, “So he lived!”

  “Keep reading.”

  I didn’t like the look on his face. Not at all.

  So I scrolled down the page and kept reading. The date was December, 1882—four months after I’d been there. It was at a bar. He’d been running his mouth, apparently; allegedly drunk. Tolbert had been the one. It was Tolbert.

  My head spun and my knees suddenly felt very unsteady. I kept reading. I couldn’t stop myself. They’d gotten in a huge brawl, starting out fist-fighting and going downhill from there. Cap had pulled first, shooting Tolbert in the chest—it was all pretty vague, all things considered. But Tolbert had fired seconds after, and his bullet had flown straight through Cap’s heart. Both died that night.

  It was a huge deal; like it was a historic moment. A historic moment that Russ and I both knew was never meant to happen. Cap was supposed to live! He wasn’t supposed to die in a bar brawl with Tolbert McCoy! Tolbert was supposed to be dead!

  Cap Hatfield died at the age of eighteen.

  He died.

  And it was all my fault.